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Thursday, April 12, 2018

Newly discovered metabolic mechanism could be an off-switch for inflammation

More effective control of inflammation is to be desired. Better understanding as well since we have a broad population affected by allergies out there who do need permanent relief.

Even a therapy that raises or lowers the natural floor should be valuable. No one should have to suffer from asthma.

So much has been accepted as unavoidable that we forget how much trouble it happens to be. People do die from these events as well..

Newly discovered metabolic mechanism could be an off-switch for inflammation

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin may have discovered a way to switch off inflammation

https://newatlas.com/inflammation-off-switch-itaconate/54003/

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have uncovered a new metabolic process involved in the immune system's inflammatory processes. The discovery suggests manipulating this mechanism could essentially "switch off" inflammation, which the researchers hope could lead to the development of entirely new anti-inflammatory drugs to treat a host of auto-immune disorders.

When the body is working properly, inflammation is a good thing. It is our natural immune system response to help the body protect itself from harmful external stimuli. But sometimes inflammation can flare up out of control and result in a number of diseases, from simple allergies to more complex gastrointestinal disorders. Inflammation has also recently been suspected to be connected to everything from cancer to depression.

The best treatment we have today for an acute inflammatory flare-up is still an old-fashioned steroidal immunosuppressive drug. These drugs can sometimes have significant negative side-effects and stifle the immune system to such an degree that it makes the patient highly susceptible to other infections.

Now a team at Trinity College Dublin has found that "itaconate" – a molecule derived from glucose – may act as an off-switch for macrophages, one of the immune cells responsible for inflammatory responses.

"My lab has been exploring metabolic changes in macrophages for the past six years and we've come across what we think is the most important finding yet," explains Luke O'Neill, joint leader in the research at Trinity. "It is well known that macrophages cause inflammation, but we have just found that they can be coaxed to make a biochemical called itaconate. This functions as an important brake, or off-switch, on the macrophage, cooling the heat of inflammation in a process never before described."

Research into itaconate is very much in its early stages, and while other recent studies have revealed the compound to be an important regulator of macrophage function, very little has been known about how it actually works. This new study offers a vital insight into how macrophages could be manipulated to reduce the levels of inflammation they produce.

"The macrophage takes the nutrient glucose, whose day job it is to provide energy, and surprisingly turns it into itaconate," says Dylan Ryan, joint first author on the new study. "This then blocks production of inflammatory factors, and also protects mice from the lethal inflammation that can occur during infection. We've found that itaconate can directly modify a whole host of proteins important for inflammation in a chemical reaction never before described, and that this reaction is important for the anti-inflammatory effects of itaconate."

The researchers are investigating several pathways for future study. As well as examining how this newly revealed mechanism could play a part in the onset of inflammatory diseases, it hopefully could lead to the development of new anti-inflammatory drugs that could treat everything from inflammatory bowel disease to arthritis.

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18 years old, having cleaned out my HS library, I concluded the only ambition worth having was becoming a great genius. An inner voice cheered. Yet it is my path I have shared much to the Human Gesalt. Mar 2017 - 4.56 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM. Sep 2010 -My essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in Relativity. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data, record impressions, interpretations and to introduce new insights to readers.